The Advent Calendar
by worrywart
Summary: When Hermione begins to notice the doors to her Advent Calendar open a little more easily than she should, she determines to find the answer. The answer helps her husband, Severus Snape, put yet another painful memory aside.


**A little something for you to enjoy as you prepare for Christmas and/or Yule. I may have the particular calendar eluded to here, and Mr. Worry may share Severus' disdain for Hermione's reaction to her beloved series of books. **

**This is unbeta'd. **

**I wish you all a happy Christmas and blessed Yule.**

**I don't own the world JK Rowling created.**

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**December 1, 2019**

Severus stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a pod of coffee. "Merlin bless the wizard who invented this thing," he thought as he placed the pod into the dispenser and pressed the size button. "Wish they weren't plastic, though," his conscious poked at him. In moments, the aromatic flavour of his favourite wake-up brew wafted toward his prodigious nose, perking him awake a bit more.

Just as he brought the delightful liquid to his lips, a squeal from the sitting room made him stumble and drop his cup, coffee splattering everywhere, some of the hot liquid splashing on his ankles and slippers. As he hopped away from the broken remains of his coffee, the door swung open and a delighted Hermione bounced her way into the kitchen. She paused momentarily to ask what happened but gave him no time to answer.

"Lookee, lookee, Severus! It's Oscar!" She held a tiny figurine between her thumb and forefinger, waving it back and forth, making it hard for Severus to focus upon it.

"What the hell, woman?! Are you twelve? And be careful; your squeal made me drop my cup."

Hermione dropped her hand and looked at the mess. "Oh, I am sorry, love. Here, let me," she said and waved her hand, cleaning up the mess. "Did you get any one you?"

"My slippers are slightly squelchy now." Another wave of her hand and his slippers were dry.

"Better?"

"Yes, now what was all the fuss?"

"You know that book series I love so much? The one with the boy who has magic and goes to a special school?"

Severus groaned. _Not this again._ No matter that the series of books that were so beloved around the world were creepily familiar in that so much of his world seemed to be mimicked in the book, his wife turned into a spotty teen again each time she read them again and again. She read all of her favourite books over and over, but he didn't recall her going all over girly after reading _Wuthering Heights_ or _The DaVinci Code_.

"Yes, what of it?" he responded cautiously.

Hermione giggled. "Well, I ordered an Advent calendar based on the books; today was the first day to open it, and when I did, I found this!" She waved the figurine in Severus' face again.

He grabbed her hand and held it out so that he could focus on it. He hated the idea of needing bi-focals, but he probably should admit it was time for them. There between her fingers was a tiny image of the boy in the book, who looked remarkably like Potter.

"What's an Advent calendar?"

"You don't know?"

"Wizards normally don't practice Christian religious traditions; I assume this is one such?"

"Oh, yes, she explained. "Advent is the season before Christmas in mainstream Christian religions. It is the season of preparation for Christ's birth and began sometime around the fourth century. It was originally the time of preparations for those converting to Christianity to prepare for baptism, but that no longer holds true. Today, the calendars follow the time from December 1st to Christmas Eve. The style of calendars today dates back to a tradition from the mid eighteen hundreds when German Protestants would make chalk marks on doors to count down the days to Christmas. It was around the early nineteen hundreds when printed ones came into being and voila!" she finished with a flourish of the figure in her hand.

Severus, whose eyes had glazed over as she explained, came to when a sharp sting on his arm meant that Hermione had realised his mind had wandered off. "Git," she giggled.

"I hardly think the German Protestants envisioned this," he pointed to the large box that took up a side table in their sitting room, decorated in blues and white with gold snowflakes. A series of numbered windows were pressed into the box with a tiny slot for a finger to press in and open the door to reveal the figure within.

"Well, they are popular, and people collect them, especially of they are based on a favourite book or movie franchise."

"Well, that explains why you have purchased this particular one."

"Did you have one as a child?"

Severus looked thoughtful and then answered, "Yes, I remember having one as a child, although I didn't know it was for Advent. It was just a way to count down to Christmas. My mum found it at a second-hand shop. She had carefully pressed all of the doors back into place. I had gotten almost all the way through it when my old man…" he trailed off.

Hermione sighed and wrapped her arms around him. "My poor Severus."

"Oh, leave off, witchling," Severus replied lovingly. "You are making sure I have all the trappings of the childhood I missed, and I am grateful for it. I am not poor anymore." He bent his head and kissed her soundly. "And now, we must be adults and head to our respective jobs."

The days followed accordingly. Hermione would open a door, squeal or laugh, and rush to show Severus her prize. He would scoff and make a snide remark, but Hermione only ever swatted him and laughed. They began to prepare for Christmas together and in secret, marking the days until Christmas Eve, when they would exchange their presents and then Christmas Day, when they would spend the day with her parents.

**December 10, 2019**

Hermione scampered down the stairs, happily looking forward to today's Advent door. Who would it be this time? The red-headed side kick? The beautiful girl that the hero was in love with? The grumpy science professor? As she opened the door, she wondered at how easily the little door opened. She had needed to steady the box containing the calendar a few days ago, but now the door gave rather easily. Shrugging her shoulders, she pulled the trinket from its tray and smiled. The gentle ogre who had befriended Oscar in the first book. She opened the plastic sleeve and carefully stood Beauregard in his place.

When the doors for December 11th through 15 opened just as easily as the others, Hermione began to be suspicious. She looked at the box carefully to see if there was a manufacturing defect in the perforations that were meant to give way when the doors were opened. She could see none. She had even poked at the unopened doors to see if they gave way, and they seemed firmly closed.

December 16th's door opened easily. Her suspicions finalised within her mind and there could only be one answer. She would say nothing, but a trip to see her parents over lunchtime would be needed to confirm her answer.

**December 21, 2019**

Saturday in the Snape household was a day for lying in, maybe a bout of love making, and Hermione cooking breakfast. This particular Saturday found Hermione not lying in but rising from her bed at her usual time and heading for the sitting room.

She quietly brought her laptop out of her messenger bag, sat on the couch, and with a few clicks of the inboard mouse pad, was giggling madly; she had the answer to her easy-to-open Advent Calendar doors.

She smirked as she prepared their usual Saturday morning breakfast; eggs, sausage, fried tomatoes, toast and accompaniments, and coffee. When all was ready, she cast a stasis charm and went to wake up Severus. She made sure her face was neutral to not give anything away. It took a moment to waken him; well, he woke easily enough, but he waylaid her plans for the 'big reveal' by showing her his own big reveal and one thing lead to another.

They had finally settled down to breakfast and were just finishing up the last of the eggs when Hermione said, "Love, I have to show you something!"

"Is it your Advent figure? You usually do that first thing."

"Well, I would have, but you led me astray. Anyway, look at this video I found!" It was not unusual for Hermione to show Severus the videos from YouTube she had found. Sometimes, an innocent vlogger was the inspiration for some of their respective research. She opened her laptop, clicked a few tabs and a video began to play.

Severus watched as the camera showed a set of stairs that looked familiar to him. Through the grainy grey and white video, a pair of feet began to descend, revealing the rest of the figure step by step. The head of the figure was out of camera shot. At this point, a bad splicing job revealed a new angle, and the figure was bent over fiddling with Hermione's Advent calendar.

At this point, Severus didn't need to see the rest of the video, which if he had, would have shown a very familiar pair of hands opening the little door, pulling out a plastic wrapped figure, looking it over, and then tucking it back.

"Erm," he coughed.

Hermione laughed and laughed. "BUSTED!" she shouted and moved to sit in Severus' lap, kissing his temple, and cajoling him into laughter as well.

"Oh, you should have seen your face! I watched you watch the video, and you started to wiggle in your chair and your face got so red!"

"When did you suspect?"

"About ten days ago. I had noticed that I no longer really had to hold on to the entire box as I opened each window, but I thought perhaps it was a manufacturing problem. Then I realised you had been leaving the bed about two hours every morning before we usually get up; I thought you were having a wee and didn't really put two and two together for a bit. Yesterday I stop at my folks and borrowed a couple of cameras from my dad. I set them up while you were in the lab downstairs and put a Notice Me not Charm on them."

Severus shook his head and settled back in the chair, rearranging Hermione, whose hip had begun to dig into his belly.

"Why, Severus?" she asked quietly.

"That day we talked about Advent Calendars and my childhood made me nostalgic. I remembered the anticipation of waking each morning to open the little door. They had small pictures in them, each showing a happy scene, religious and secular. I admit now I was a bit selfish in wanting to open the door first to see what the figure was. I am sorry," he finished sorrowfully.

"Oh, love," Hermione soothed, "I too am sorry if I brought up any bad memories for you. You know I don't do things on purpose to hurt you when I add elements of my childhood to our life, right?"

"Of course not! I just…it does hurt sometimes."

"Would you like to take turns opening the rest of the doors?" Hermione offered.

Severus hugged her. "If you'd like."

Hermione in turn hugged him and got up to gather the breakfast dishes.

"Hermione?" Severus asked, standing to help.

"Yes, Sev?"

"Could we get one for me next year?"

Hermione laughed with glee. When she had reviewed the video recording from last night, she immediately understood what Severus had done and ordered a calendar that she would put away for next year. "We'll have 'his and her' versions next year, how's that?"

Severus chuckled and Hermione began to wash the dishes, singing off coloured lyrics to Christmas carols as they worked together.


End file.
